❝ Does being a Child of Hermes automatically make you good at flirting? Or was that just a skill you picked up? ❞
Andromeda Jackson knew she was not cut out for the demigod life, and that was before she heard about her death from the creepy oracle i...
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𝕾o, I felt like a penguin. Only issue is they're flightless birds and I was plummeting towards rocks far below.
I spread my arms out, feeling the wings stiffen and catch the wind, my descent slowing. I soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive. Experimentally, I flapped my arms once. I arced into the sky, the wind whistling in my ears.
The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, I felt like the wings were part of my body. I could soar and swoop and dive anywhere I wanted to. I turned, watching my friends.
Luke was unfortunately a natural, swooping around and making sure that Annabeth and Nico kept up. Rachel was beside me, looking pale.
Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.
"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever."
"How long?" Rachel asked.
"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth said.
We swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. I did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers that must of thought I was a very large eagle. Then the four of us soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor centre. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but we ripped off our wings as quickly as we could.
The self-adhesive seals that bound the wings to our backs were already melting, and we were shedding bronze feathers. It seemed a shame, but we couldn't fix them, and couldn't leave them around for the mortals, so we stuffed the wings in trash bins outside the cafeteria.
I used the tourist binocular camera to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill.
"The workshop moved," Annabeth guessed. "There's no telling where."
"So what happens now?" I muttered.
"I don't think that we can get back into the maze." Luke pressed a hand to the small of my back, checking me over quickly. "If Daedalus died, he said his life force was tied into the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe this will prevent Puck from invading."
I thought about Grover and Tyson, still down there somewhere. And Daedalus...even though he'd done some terrible things and put everybody I cared about at risk, it seemed like a pretty horrible way to die.
